In today's world, collaboration between business partners, inside and outside the corporation, is fundamental. Internally, functions like IT, HR, finance and legal are increasingly seen as providers who deliver the services the business needs.
IT departments, in particular, are increasingly seen as service providers and separate profit centres within a company, delivering a non-core function that is nevertheless critical. In a similar vein, IT vendors are also seen as important service providers, and their engagement with the company and its IT department also needs to be managed professionally to ensure the expected value is realised.
Indeed, this thinking has also driven another significant trend - the tendency to outsource certain functions, often non-core ones, to third parties. Of course, there are many different ways companies structure these types of arrangements, but they all face the same challenge: how to ensure both parties achieve their individual financial goals while still delivering value to the partnership. The business relationship manager role has developed to connect the partners, to orchestrate their efforts towards achieving the desired value, and to navigate the many risks that threaten value-creation, says Guy Eastoe, MD, Snap Tech International, a training and consulting company.
"The business world is increasingly reliant on disparate teams that come together to create value, but that are autonomous to some degree. It's a model that has many advantages, but the risk is that each party's goals could interfere with creating the value desired," says Eastoe.
"We can see this in the conflicts that arise between the business and the IT (and other) internal departments, for example - both have their specific needs and ways of working, and often they don't come together. The business relationship manager evolved to bridge that gap."
The importance of this role prompted the formation of the Business Relationship Management Institute (BRMI) in 2013. The BRMI provides both the formal architecture of skills needed to fill the business relationship manager role, as well as certification and continuous professional development programmes. The BRMI provides the path for an individual to obtain professional certification as a business relationship management professional or a certified business relationship manager.
So, what skills does a business relationship manager need?
Eastoe identifies five key skill sets for business relationship managers:
* Benefits and value management
* Project and programme management
* Portfolio management
* Business change management
* Strategy formulation
"Of course, one will acquire these skills over time, but some level of proficiency will be necessary, and can be improved over time," he says. "They will enable the business relationship manager to ensure that both the service provider, be it internal or external, and the company achieve what they set out to do. In the IT context, this role is often taken - or assumed to be taken - by the CIO, who seldom has the time or skills for it."
The business relationship manager's key responsibilities include:
* Helping business managers articulate and define the benefits they expect from IT projects, and how to measure that value.
* Ensuring business and IT work together as a team to maximise the value from good project and programme management, with a particular focus on using the principles of agile to improve the speed and accuracy of what is done.
* Leading the project to a successful conclusion, first through helping to develop a strategy for each project, and then undertaking the portfolio management needed to balance and harmonise all the various projects and programmes.
Other skills like communications, service management and facilitation also play a role - not forgetting EQ.
"Projects bring change, and that's always difficult. More importantly, the pace of business now is such that projects have to deliver quickly, and there is much less tolerance for failure," he concludes. "A good business relationship manager can ensure that the project achieves what it set out to do, and within the stipulated time-frame. Now that's the foundation for a rewarding career."
Share